Category: Behind The Black

Scientists find oldest known reference to a solar eclipse dated approximately 6,000 years ago

9:36 am

In studying an ancient Hindu text called the Rig Veda that was compiled around 1,500 BC, scientists have found what they think is the oldest known reference to a solar eclipse, dated approximately 6,000 years ago.

You can read the peer-reviewed paper here [pdf]. From the paper’s conclusion:

We propose that the eclipse recorded in the Rig Veda refers to observations made of an eclipse around 4000 BC. By analyzing the description, we propose that the eclipse was the one that occurred in 4202 BC or else in 3811 BC. We propose that it was observed in Central Asia. To our knowledge, this is one of the oldest known references to a specific total solar eclipse mentioned in the historical literature.

The scientists came to this conclusion based on information contained and not contained in the Hindu text. The text noted the event occurred three days before the autmnal equinox, and that it occurred when that equinox occurred in the constellation Orion, when today the equinox occurs in the constellation Pisces. This reduced the number of possible eclipses to a small number during the time period around 4,000 BC. The text also lacked any mention of various Hindo myths explaining eclipses that appeared more recently, thus confirming this ancient date and telling the researchers that the nomadic people who compiled the Rig Veda were likely living in central Asia at that time.

The only two eclipses that fit the bill occurred on either October 22, 4202 BC or October 9, 3811 BC. This makes it the earliest known reference to an eclipse, far earlier than the possible eclipses that occurred in around 3340 BC and around 1300 BC.

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Largest corporate investor in rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg finalized deal to go private

9:12 am

The German company OHB, the largest corporate investor in the German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg, has finalized its deal with the investment company KKR to go private and delist OHB from the German stock market.

OHB announced in August 2024 the deal where KKR would buy shares not owned by the Fuchs family for 44 euros ($48.70) per share. Under the deal, the Fuchs family will maintain its controlling 65.4% ownership of OHB while KKR owns 28.6%. That combined 94% ownership will allow OHB to delist from the exchange, effectively taking the company private.

It appears that both companies are committed to OHB’s investment in Rocket Factory, and by getting OHB delisted it gives them greater flexibility in doing so. It also appears that Marco Fuchs, the CEO of OHB, had decided in the last few years that for rocket startups being a public company was counter-productive in many ways.

“We saw all these SPACs fail. We see very different valuations out there. So, it’s not a good place to be, in the public market, especially in the core business model of doing space projects,” he said at the Space Tech Expo Europe conference. “It’s not exactly what capital markets appreciate.”

In a sense, this deal appears to be a show of support for Rocket Factory, even though its first launch is seriously delayed due to a recent failed static fire test of its first stage that destroyed the stage.

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That sonar-type sound heard on Starliner’s speakers was simply feedback

9:01 am

In a short post today NASA noted that the mysterious sonar-type sound heard on Starliner’s speakers over the weekend was nothing more than simple feedback caused by an “audio configuration between the space station and Starliner” and that the sound stopped when that configuration was adjusted.

The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback. The crew is asked to contact mission control when they hear sounds originating in the comm system. The speaker feedback Wilmore reported has no technical impact to the crew, Starliner, or station operations

In other words, this is not a rare event, and from the beginning was not considered by the astronauts, ground engineers, or NASA management to be a matter of concern. The fix was apparently simple and straightforward, and is part of the work done whenever any new vehicle gets docked and tied into ISS’s systems.

It appears however to have caused many in the news media and in the space world to go nuts simply because it was linked to Starliner and Boeing. This is similar to the recent pattern of assigning all blame to Boeing whenever any Boeing-built plane has technical problems, even if that plane had been purchased by the airline decades earlier and its maintenance was solely the responsibility of the airline for that long.

Boeing is definitely a company in trouble, on many levels. We shouldn’t however look for problems there in the company when they clearly don’t exist.

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China launches “remote-sensing satellites” test satellites

8:51 am

China today successfully placed a classified “group” of “remote-sensing satellites” into orbit to test “new technologies of low-orbit constellations,” its Long March 4B lifting off from the Xichang spaceport in the southwest of China.

That is all the information that China’s state-run press released. No word was released as to where
in China the lower stages crashed. As to the number of satellites launched, according to this independent site, the launch had nine payloads, which suggests but does not confirm nine satellites.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

86 SpaceX
37 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 101 to 55, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies 86 to 70.

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John Gabriel & Nelson Riddle – El Dorado

6:01 pm

An evening pause: I think this song quite fitting to end the summer season. Sung by George Alexander, it plays over the opening credits to the classic 1966 John Wayne film of the same name, directed by Howard Hawks. The magnificent paintings that form the backdrop to the credits were painted by Olaf Wieghorst.

My daddy once told me what a man ought to be.
There’s much more to life than the things we can see.
And the godliest mortal you ever will know
Is the one with the dream of El Dorado.

So ride, boldly ride, to the end of the rainbow.
Ride, boldly ride, till you find El Dorado.

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Sunspot update: The Sun continues to boom!

12:02 pm

It is time for my monthly sunspot update, taking NOAA’s most recent update of its monthly graph tracking the number of sunspots on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere and adding my own analysis as well as some additional details to provide the larger context.

During August the Sun continued to confound the experts, with the number of sunspots not only greater than July’s high count. the August count exceeded the numbers from December 2001 (215.5 vs 213.4), the last time the Sun was this active.

None of the predictions by anyone in the solar science community had predicted this level of activity.
» Read more

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A galaxy with a halo and a stupendous central black hole

9:22 am

A galaxy with a halo and a stupendous black hole
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a survey of galaxies that have what astronomers call active galactic nuclei (AGNs). This galaxy, dubbed IC 4709, is about 240 million light years away.

If IC 4709’s core were just filled with stars, it would not be nearly so bright. Instead it hosts a gargantuan black hole, 65 million times the mass of our Sun. A disc of gas spirals around and eventually into this black hole, with the gas crashing together and heating up as it spins. It reaches such high temperatures that it emits vast quantities of electromagnetic radiation, from infrared to visible to ultraviolet light and beyond — in this case including X-rays. The AGN in IC 4709 is obscured by a lane of dark dust, just visible at the centre of the galaxy in this image, which blocks any optical emission from the nucleus itself.

To get a very vague sense of scale, this supermassive black hole is more than sixteen times more massive than the relatively inactive supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way. This imagery and data from Hubble will help astronomers better understand the interaction between the black hole and its surrounding galaxy.

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Due to thruster problem, the Mercury orbiter BepiColombo will arrive at Mercury almost one year late

9:05 am

The joint ESA and JAXA Mercury mission BepiColombo will now reach its destination eleven months late because its ion electric thrusters are producing less thrust than expected.

The spacecraft is actually made up of two orbiters, one built by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the second built by Japan’s space agency JAXA. During launch and the journey to Mercury each is attached to a third spacecraft called the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM), which has the large electric ion thrusters used for making the mid-course corrections prior to and after each fly-by of the Earth (once), Venus (twice), and Mercury (six) before finally entering orbit around Mercury. It has already completed the Earth, Venus and three Mercury fly-bys.

In April 2024 engineers discovered that during a mid-course correction on April 26st the MTM’s thrusters failed to produce the desired thrust.

Engineers identified unexpected electric currents between MTM’s solar array and the unit responsible for extracting power and distributing it to the rest of the spacecraft. Onboard data imply that this is resulting in less power available for electric propulsion. ESA’s BepiColombo Mission Manager, Santa Martinez explains: “Following months of investigations, we have concluded that MTM’s electric thrusters will remain operating below the minimum thrust required for an insertion into orbit around Mercury in December 2025.”

In order not to lose the mission entirely, the science team has come up with a new trajectory that will have it fly past Mercury on its fourth fly-by on September 4, 2024 only 103 miles above the surface, 22 miles closer than originally planned. This will give it a larger slingshot speed boost to help make up for the under-powered thrusters. It will then make its planned fifth and sixth Mercury fly-bys in December ’24 and January ’25, the adjusted route having it arrive in Mercury orbit eleven months later than planned, in November 2026.

This new plan however means that the pictures taken this week during the Mercury fly-by will provide some nice high resolution details, far better than those produced by the earlier fly-bys.

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Rocket startup ABL lays off a significant number of staff

9:52 am

As a result of a launchpad fire that destroyed its rocket — just before it was going to make the second attempt to achieve orbit — rocket startup ABL has now laid off a significant but unstated number of staff in order to save money.

In a post on LinkedIn Aug. 30, Harry O’Hanley, chief executive of ABL, said the company was laying off an unspecified number of people. He included the email he sent to company staff after an all-hands meeting to discuss the layoffs.

In 2021 the company had raised almost $400 million in private investment capital, but it is possible that the loss of its first two rockets, one mere seconds after launch and the second before the launch could even occur, has possibly caused some investors to pull their money from the company. It is also possible those investors also recognized that the increased red tape imposed on all rocket companies since the FAA instituted its new “streamlined” Part 450 regulatory rules in 2021 was likely going to delay the next ABL launch attempt so much it made investments in the company no longer viable.

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SpaceX resumes launches with a bang!

9:29 am

Within hours of the FAA clearing SpaceX to resume launches, the company did so most emphatically, launching twice in little more than an hour apart from opposite coasts.

First the company placed 20 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral. The first stage completed its eighteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Then, one hour and five minutes later, the company launched 21 Starlink satellites, the Falcon 9 lifting off from Vandenberg in California. That first stage completed its ninth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

This fast return to flight underlines the unnecessary delay of at least one day in launches caused by the FAA’s red tape. SpaceX had scheduled at least one of these launches the previous night — and was clearly ready to launch — but had to cancel it because the FAA stood in the way.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

86 SpaceX
36 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 101 to 54, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies 86 to 69.

2024 is now the second year in a row the U.S. rocket industry has completed more than 100 launches, something it could not do for the first three-quarters of a century after Sputnik, when our precious government used NASA to run our entire space program. Now that freedom and capitalism has managed to wrest some control away from NASA, Americans are finally doing what they would have done in the 1960s, had Congress and President Kennedy not stepped in, first requiring all space exploration be run under a “space program” controlled by NASA, and then passing the Communications Satellite Act in 1962 which forbid Americans from running private profit-oriented launches without government participation.

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FAA gets out of the way

8:54 pm

My heart be still! The FAA today cleared SpaceX to resume launches, after grounding its fleet for two days because a Falcon 9 first stage, flying on its 23rd launch and having successfully placed 21 satellites into orbit, fell over after landing softly on its drone ship in the Atlantic.

The FAA statement was short but to my mind illustrates again the growing effort of the administrative state to require Americans to obtain its permission to do anything at all.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle may return to flight operations while the overall investigation of the anomaly during (Wednesday’s) mission remains open, provided all other license requirements are met. SpaceX made the return to flight request on Aug. 29 and the FAA gave approval on Aug. 30.

That the FAA even grounded SpaceX for one second, and then required SpaceX to ask permission to fly again, is all unacceptable and a great abuse of power. There was no reason for this grounding at all. Even as the FAA announced it two days ago the agency admitted the failed landing posed no threat to the public. It should have immediately said the company had every right to continue flying.

Even though there are people at the FAA with good intentions, the overall trend there and everywhere within that Washington bureaucracy is to expand its power, to make demands of Americans in every way, and to insist it must be the gatekeeper for any action by any American. Only today for example the FDA declared unilaterally that all retailers now have to obtain photo ID from anyone under thirty who wishes to buy tobacco. It claims it has the right to mandate this based on a legislation passed in 2019, but without question this is a very liberal interpretation of that law, which merely raised the minimum age for buying tobacco from 18 to 21. I am sure it did not give the FDA the outright ability to declare such mandates without any review by anyone.

Power grabs like this are only going to get worse, unless Americans vote in new legislators and support them when they act to neuter these agencies. It remains however strongly doubtful whether most Americans are willing to do this. It would require a love of freedom and the risks it entails to abandon the regulatory state, and right now I don’t think most people have that kind of courage. They have grown used to having a big daddy acting to protect them, and appear willing to accept that gentle tyranny more and more.

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